


Go there and wait

by pr_scatterbrain



Series: Adoption au [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Adoption, Found Families, Gen, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-20 06:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1499915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pr_scatterbrain/pseuds/pr_scatterbrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Penguin’s time is almost up when one of the staff brings over a pre-teen boy. In his hand, he is clutching a hockey stick. Mario smiles at the sight. </p><p>"This is Sidney," the social worker says, gently pushing him forward. "He plays hockey."</p><p>"Hey," Mario grins. "Me too." </p><p>Or the one where the Lemieux’s adopt Sidney.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go there and wait

**Author's Note:**

> This started life as a ficlet and kept growing. It was originally meant to be my hockeybigbang fic but it grew and grew. In the end I chose to split it up into three fics. Although this part is mostly gen (apart from a small Geno/Ovie scene) there will be pairings in the next part. I wish to thank Sarah, Rae and Lexi for all of their help and support. This would not have been possible without them. Sarah listened to me ramble, Rae was the most generous beta in the world, and Lexi was the voice of reason I needed. Thank you for your time, kindness and friendship. I owe you one. *hugs and hearts*
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> n.b. I aged Lauren Lemieux up a little.

 

 

**[1999-2000]**

 

It’s strange attending Penguin’s charity events now. Or still. Mario isn’t quite sure which tense is more appropriate, but then it hasn’t been all that long since Mario went from being a Penguin, to owning them. Over his shoulder Mario sees Jean-Sebastien Aubin posing for photographs while Jaromír Jágr is grinning at something Jiri Slegr is saying to him. Fondly, Mario watches as Jaromír laughs, his eyes bright as he leans down to sign a young girls t-shirt. The C suits Jaromír as everyone knew it would. The centre of attention, Jaromír is all charm. Perhaps a little ego, but who is counting? 

The season is yet to start, but there is a healthy buzz around the room. A good half of the team is present. Scattered around the local children’s home, they’ve already formally handed over the oversized check and are now spending time with some of the kids. Officially, this is the ‘photo-shoot’ part of the event, but it’s informal and it’s nice, really. Mario likes kids. They're funny. Most of them are fascinated by Jaromír's accent, and laugh when Robert Langlifts lifts them up spins them around in air. 

"Watch out," Mario warns. "You don't want to make them sick."

Robert makes a face. "Don't be a kill joy, boss."

Mario rolls his eyes. Eventually he will become used to that. Everything becomes normal given enough time. For now though, it’s strange. Finding a spot towards the side of the room to sits, Mario settles in to spend his time signing his own share of hats and the back of kids’ shirts. Occasionally a reporter drifts by, clicking a recorder on and off while asking the perennial questions about the upcoming season, his opinion regarding Jaromír and the Penguins chances to make the playoffs this year. For the most part, the journalists don't press too hard. It's hard to demand a player’s time when a kid wants it, especially these kids.

The Penguin’s time at the home is almost up when one of the staff brings over a dark haired pre-teen boy. In his hand, he is clutching a hockey stick. Mario smiles at the sight. 

"This is Sidney," the social worker says, gently pushing him forward. "He plays hockey."

"Hey," Mario grins. "Me too." 

Sidney shyly peeks up through his hair. "I know that."

"Yeah?" 

He nods. 

"What position do you play?" Mario asks.   

"Centre." 

"It seems like we've got a lot in common," Mario nods. 

Sidney bites his lip. He's young. All the kids are. Sidney can't be more than ten, maybe eleven at the most. He ducks his head; his dark curly hair covering his eyes once more. Mario refocuses on the stick Sidney is holding. Reaching over, Mario carefully corrects his grip. 

"That will make it easier on your wrists," he tells Sidney. 

He watches Sidney wrinkle his nose at the change and is a little startled when one of the Pen’s PR people reach over and tap him on the shoulder.

"Five more minutes," they remind him. Mario nods. 

Pulling out his permanent marker, Mario grins. "Want me to sign your stick before I go?"

It makes Sidney grin, bright and unexpectedly happy. "Sure." 

 

 

Afterwards, Mario is exhausted. At practice, he watches Jaromír from the sidelines as he quietly speaks to Jan Hrdina while the others warm up. They both look similarly fatigued. Mario thinks this is the reason they are sent out in groups rather than alone when they go to see kids. It's good, what the team can do and the attention they can bring to worthy causes. But - those kids are about the same age as Mario's kids. At night his children will be safely tucked in bed, but Mario doesn't know if he can say the same about the children he met today. 

When he was younger, it had taken him a while to get used to how people – the fans and media – felt a sense ownership towards him. He had not anticipated how, as a Penguin, he represented things outside himself. Things outside of his control. Jaromír had simultaneously taken more and less time to work that out. Back when it was the two of then blinking ticker tape out of their eyes, Mario was able to compartmentalise it. He gave money and time, and helped how he could. It’s harder now, having had kids, to do the same sorts of charity events. Harder to hand over the cheque and be done with it.

There is work to do, he reminds himself. He has so much work to do – he has a new role within the Pens – but Mario finds himself sitting and watching the afternoon practice letting the sound of blades on ice and the chirping of his former team mates wash over him. A few times Jaromír glances over. Mario heads up to his office before Jaromír gets a chance to skate over between drills.

When he gets home, Nathalie shakes her head at him. "What have you been up to, now?" 

Mario shrugs.

It isn’t exactly an answer, but then again it doesn’t have to be with Nathalie. Not when she knows him better than anyone. It’s an easy way out though. They both know it. Sitting down for dinner, Mario tries to think of something better, an answer that doesn’t have to be translated, one which anyone could understand. But he can't begin to articulate it all. He doesn't quite know what he feels. Instead he asks about Stephanie's day and listens to Lauren tell him all about how awful middle school math is. 

It's awful, but Mario tries to put the events of the day out of his mind. 

 

 

(He can't). 

 

 

There are things that Mario carries, and things which carry him. Mario isn’t naïve. He isn’t.

Jaromír smiles fondly when Mario says as much the following day. “No, of course not.”

“You don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Jaromír laughs. “I know you.”

He does, and neither of them are particularly surprised when Mario finds himself volunteering to be a guest coach at a local midget hockey clinic.

Mario isn't really meant to be there. Or rather, Mario doesn’t feel like he should be there. Though the Pen’s PR team was ecstatic (and the midget hockey league), the Penguins are playing the Capitals the following day. Although Mario is no longer a player, he still finds himself acting like one; reviewing tapes and going over tactics with Kevin Constantine and Herb Brooks. It’s a bad habit, but it’s one of many.

Mario is lacing up his skates at the side of the rink when he sees a familiar dark haired boy.

It’s –

Mario didn’t know if Sidney would be there. If he’s honest Mario hoped he might be, but he didn’t know.

Here, now, Mario feels something inside himself which he didn’t know had been tense, relax – there. There Sidney is. In the months since Mario last saw him, he has grown a little. It’s the uneven growth of kids that age, out of proportion and only the beginning of what’s to come. He's still using the same stick though. It's too short for him now. But the sight makes Mario grin. He was the exact same way when he was Sidney's age. 

The kids at the event are okay for their age group. Scrappy and not particularly skilled. But they laugh happily when Mario has them playing skating games (which are really drills disguised as games) and determinedly face off against each other when Mario breaks the kids up into small three person teams. 

He is caught off guard when Sidney takes the ice.

During the drills, the kids - about thirty or forty of them, blend together into a motley mix of mismatched uniforms and unrefined vigour. Now, with only six kids to concentrate on, Mario can see that Sidney is good.  Quick and good with the puck, he plays like a kid years older. More than that, he is clever. Some kids his age have tunnel vision. All they see is the puck. Sidney’s head is up and his eyes are moving. From the sidelines, Mario watches as he out skates all three kids he is facing and easily slips the puck into the net.

It’s clear Sidney shouldn't be in an under twelve team. He's small and unpolished and has more than a few bad habits (his grip, however, is perfect). But he's good. Really good. He says as much to Sidney's coach while the puck is being retrieved and the kids are lining back up to face off against each other.

The coach, a retired high school teacher with the unflappable personality to match, shrugs. "Hockey's good for keeping kids like him out of trouble."

And - Mario doesn't know what 'kids like Sidney' is supposed to mean. 

The coach smiles at Mario like he's an out of touch hockey star. Maybe Mario is. On the ice, Sidney steals the puck from a kid half a foot taller than him. The kid swipes his stick at the back of Sidney’s knees - the ref blows the whistle. The kids skating against Sidney burst into angry jeers. 

The coach walks over to break it up. 

 

 

 

When the clinic is over and all of the Pen’s media team have left and all the photographs have been taken and jerseys have been signed, Mario helps collect the pucks scattered across the rink. From the ice, he watches the kids shuffle off towards the locker room. Off the ice, they are clumsy as they wobble on their skates. A few of them hang back from the group, clearly reluctant to leave the ice just yet. Sidney is one of them. 

"Want to help me clean up?" Mario asks them.

Most of the kids agree enthusiastically. Sidney though looks torn. Up close, Mario can see a bruise is beginning to bloom on Sidney's cheekbone. He must have taken a tumble when Mario wasn’t looking. 

Impulsively, Mario taps a puck towards him. Instinctively, Sidney receives it and with careful hands, he passes it back to Mario. 

"Looking good," he tells Sidney. "But if you -"

And for a little while it is easy. Hockey is a language. The puck, ice, and here, it’s a dialogue between just the two of them. It's a little like skating with Lauren, only Sidney is quieter. He barely says anything, but his attention never strays. Mario isn’t a coach – he might have perhaps thought of becoming one once, but that isn’t the path he chose. Sidney soaks up Mario’s advice up like a sponge though. Mario remembers being that way when he was Sidney's age. He tells Sidney that. 

Sidney wrinkles his nose.

Mario can’t help but laugh.

“Okay, when I was your age I sometimes thought I knew better than my coach,” Mario admits.

“You’re not my coach,” Sidney tells Mario.

“No, I’m not. So I supposes that makes it okay.”

Sidney smiles a small and unguarded smile, and then tries to steal the puck from Mario while he is distracted by it. Mario manages to stop him, but he can’t help but be impressed. Sidney telegraphed his actions a little. He’s young and of course it shows. But he is keen.

“Nice try,” Mario tells him, because it was pretty good.

“I can do better,” Sidney says.

Mario finds himself breaking into a smile. “Show me.”

It's nice - it's really nice. Or it is until someone shouts Sidney's name from the side of the rink. From memory, Mario places her as one of the social workers from the charity event. She’s clearly there to collect Sidney. She waves at Mario when she recognises him in turn, and Mario feels himself coming back to reality. Sidney hasn't been placed, hasn't found a home. He's still in the system. 

"Sorry," Sidney mumbles, his cheeks stained red. 

Mario feels his heart breaking. "No, no. It's not your fault."

He says that to the social worker too, but it's clear she doesn't quite believe him. Though really, Mario can't make himself feel upset for that. She looks exhausted. A handful of other kids - older than Sidney - are sitting on the stands bickering with each other. It's clearly been a long day. For all of them.

He talks to her for a little bit while they wait for Sidney to get changed. Mostly they talk about Sidney. She shakes her head when Mario brings him up. They're having trouble placing him, she explains when he presses a little. He gets in fights. (Mostly, Mario manages to infer, because the kids he plays hockey with don't like how much better he is than them). He doesn't talk to anyone. He's getting older too. This, Mario doesn’t understand. Sidney’s a kid. The social worker frowns and explains that the older Sidney gets, the more difficult it is to find someone willing to take him on. 

“Teenagers are a big commitment,” she tells Mario. “Not everyone feels up to taking one into their family.”

Mario doesn't like the sound of that - doesn't like how she makes Sidney sound like some like of imposition, like some kind of burden someone would have to bear. 

"He's a good kid," he finds himself saying. 

She nods. “They all are.”

Mario doesn’t know what to say to that, because she’s right. They all are.  

To break the awkward silence, Mario comments on how good Sidney is at hockey. 

"It's a good hobby," she comments. And, it is. But that isn't quite right.

From the kids milling behind her, the ones looking increasingly bored as they wait for Sidney, it is clear that the social worker’s time is limited at best. At most, Mario thinks, she knows is Sidney attends practice after school rather than detentions (at least, most of the time). It isn’t a fair thought, but Mario thinks it’s true.

They talk a little longer while they wait. Mario lets the conversation shift away from Sidney and back to easier topics until Sidney appears from the change rooms. Red faced and out of breath, his hair is tangled and out of shape from wearing his helmet, and his shirt is buttoned incorrectly.

"Sorry," he mumbles. 

The social worker sighs. 

Mario makes himself smile - it was easy to forget on the ice - and say goodbye. 

Sidney waves awkwardly. 

 

 

At dinner that night Mario finds himself mentioning how he saw Sidney again.

"The boy from the shelter?" Nathalie asks, absently. 

Mario nods. 

"Small world," she smiles. 

Is it?

Mario knows about kids in need. Over the course of his career, he’s visited hospitals and donated to charities and spoken to underprivileged youth groups. Yet Mario doesn’t know anyone who was adopted. He doesn’t know anyone who has adopted a child either. The knowledge sits uneasily with him and he finds his thoughts returning to Sidney again and again.

He and his family have so much, and are so lucky, so fortunate to have the life they have. 

Mario’s never been alone like Sidney is, and the thought of one of his children – it makes his fingers clench and his heart stutter inside his chest.

 

 

Slowly, in between the paperwork, owners’ group board meetings, press, and watching games in the box so far away from the ice, a seed is planted.

Except that’s a lie. The seed was planted much earlier.

 

 

Nathalie is cautious when Mario brings it up, as he knew she would be.

Mario wasn’t oblivious enough to believe she hadn’t noticed how quiet he became after the two charity events. She knows him. Of course she pieced it together. But they have four kids. It's the start of hockey season. Mario might be retired, but the Penguins still demand much of his time. He might not be accompanying the team on every road trip, but he will be spending the majority of his time shut in a board room or in a corner office trying to bring some order and functionality back to his team. Although Nathalie has friends and help in Pittsburgh, their parents and extended family are in Canada.

“It's one thing to give a check to charity, it's another thing all together to take a foster kid into the family,” she says and Mario nods, because that is true.

Nathalie goes quiet.

Mario hates that it falls to her to be reasonable, to think of all the things he cannot. He does not fool himself into thinking it doesn’t. 

“It’s understandable to see some of yourself in in Sidney,” she says eventually, “But guilt isn't a good reason to foster a kid.”

"It's not like that," Mario argues. 

“I don’t know,” Nathalie says, “Maybe it isn’t. But maybe it is.”

“Does it matter?” Mario asks, suddenly, wanting to know.

Nathalie bites her lip. Mario has done a lot of things. Some for the right reasons, some for the wrong reasons. How could giving a kid without a family a place in theirs be a bad decision?

The conversation stalls.

Mario doesn’t know what he could possibly say.

It is only later, when they are getting ready to go to bed, that Mario finds himself turning to Nathalie and saying the words out loud.

“I want to adopt him.”

It isn’t much, but it’s true.

 

 

When there is an opportunity to see Sidney, Mario volunteers Nathalie and himself. He tries to make it as casual as he can. He doesn’t want anyone to have any expectations going in, not him and especially not Sidney. As far as anyone knows, they are just there to donate their kids’ old toys to the shelter.

He tells himself that over and over.

He doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince.

 

 

The first time Nathalie meets Sidney, she understands.

In her head, she had imagined all kinds of things - Oliver Twist and Annie, grim fairy tales and stories from her childhood of orphans and orphanages, awful headlines of troubled kids and - but Sidney isn't really like that. He's small and a little rough around the edges. He's polite and quiet. A lot of the kids are loud, fighting for attention. Sidney is quiet though. When she sits down beside him and offers him a book, he thanks her. His accent is a mix of places, a little like her children’s. He's Canadian. Or, his father was, she finds out later. 

The book is one of Lauren's. It's one Nathalie's mother gave her. Originally, it was one that Nathalie read as a kid. She tells Sidney that. He nods seriously and listens as she tells him about it.

By the end of the visit she's as gone on Sidney as Mario is. 

"It's not going to be easy," she says as they drive home.

"I know," Mario nods. 

She isn't sure if he does.  

 

 

Once the decision is made, a lot of things happen simultaneously fast and slow.

Neither Mario or Nathalie know if their children understand quite what it means when they ask what they would think about having an older brother after dinner a few nights later. Alexa and Austin are so young – maybe too young to understand. Stephanie is a little older but she can’t quite get her head around the idea.

“We have a brother,” Stephanie says simply.

Lauren, who is just one year younger than Sidney, takes the news quite seriously. Quietly curious about the world, she sits with them and asks questions about Sidney. Some of her questions they have answers for, many they don’t. Mario knows Sidney has good hands and sharp eyes that seem to see everything on the ice. But he doesn’t know about Sidney’s favourite planet in the solar system, or if he prefers dogs to cats. 

“Do you think he’ll like our dogs?” Lauren asks.

Mario nods. He hopes Sidney will like everything.

The responsibility of bringing Sidney home, feels so enormous to Mario. But it isn’t until they go and meet Miranda, Sidney’s case worker, that the reality of it starts to set in. Though no case in the state foster system is simple, few have as much red tape involved as Sidney’s does. Officially Sidney is, or rather was, Canadian. He ended up in Pittsburgh after his second cousin once removed was given custody upon his parent’s death.

Miranda leans back in her chair when April Forbes, comes up.

The reality is that April is young. Too young to care for Sidney. Originally she wasn’t even meant to have been given custody of him. But the Crosby family is small. The few other surviving members are much older and in less of a position than April to care for Sidney. In contrast, Sidney’s mother’s side, the Forbes family, are larger. However, according to Miranda, they were in a state of disarray. April wasn’t the best option, but she was the only one Sidney had. Together they manage to survive for a few months, but then social services were forced to step in. Since then Sidney had been a short term, and then, a long term foster prospect.  

“We want to adopt him,” Mario says, because that doesn’t feel like enough.

“It’s not that simple.”

But it is. Or it feels like it should be.

“You’re being naïve,” Nathalie says on the car trip home.

Mario shakes his head. It doesn’t feel naïve to know what he wants. It would have felt worst not to say it.

As time passes, Mario only becomes more sure of that. Yet he tries to be careful when they see Sidney. It is difficult to speak about bringing him home when each time they see him, they have to leave him bouncing between emergency foster placements and the group home. Money and Mario’s name make things easier, but it isn’t an easy process. There is paperwork and interviews and education classes. Mario pushes, throwing his weight around to get their application approved as soon as humanly possible. Approval that should have taken months is granted in weeks.

 

 

So far, the Penguins PR team has been able to keep things relatively under wraps. It’s difficult though, when they bring Sidney home. Nathalie is used to the press, to the fans – to what it means to live in Pittsburgh during hockey season. But privacy has never felt so important or so fleeting to her than it does now.

The first few weeks are the most challenging. There are new routines to establish, and so much ground to cover. From the corner of her eye, she sometimes catches the reflection of light hitting a camera lens while doing the morning school drop off. Lauren is used to it, as much as a child can be, but Sidney isn’t. At first Nathalie hopes that he will be oblivious to the attention, but in retrospect that is foolish.

She tries to talk to Sidney about it a few times, but it’s tough. 

Quiet and self-contained, Sidney is happiest when Mario is at home. In the evenings when Mario comes home from work, they play pick-up games against each other until she calls them in for dinner. Nathalie can’t begrudge Mario for the connection he has to Sidney, but – Nathalie doesn’t know. With Lauren, Nathalie loved her from the beginning – from before the beginning, when the idea of having children with Mario was just an idea, just something that might happen a long way down the track in the future.

It’s so different with Sidney.

There is so much uncharted geography between them.

Carefully, he watches her with dark serious eyes, tracking her movements and reactions. He startles easily and like a head shy horse, he keeps himself always a little out of reach. There is a remoteness though, to Sidney. In the evenings he may sit beside Lauren to do his homework, but part of him is so far away from them.

“He loves us,” Mario says one of the few times she brings it up.

Nathalie makes herself smile; Sidney loves Mario.

It's easier for Mario. He has hockey - he's the hockey star who comes home and coaches him in the driveway – and hockey in Mario’s hands is a language. With it, Mario slowly draws Sidney out of his shell.

At night, when the kids are all in bed, Mario all talks about is Sidney and his potential. From a diamond in the rough, he has been pushed up one, then two age brackets over the course of the school term.

Trust is hard for Sidney. This is meant to be a given. Miranda had advised caution. Yet despite knowing better – despite being the adult - Nathalie is still back there in the figurative under eights league, feeling stung when Sidney flinches when she reaches to help him with his school tie and fumbling at parent-teacher interview night. According to Sidney’s teachers, he’s a smart kid but he’s behind with his course work. Having missed so much school over the previous few years, there is so much he needs to catch up on. Equally, his hockey coach speaks about how Sidney is talented but lacks the formal training other children his age have. In hockey, he is able to compensate; his on ice ability is just as notable as Mario’s initial assessment. Yet in the classroom, more than one of his teachers brings up the suggestion of dropping Sidney down a grade.

Mario bristles whenever the subject comes up.

“We’ll get him a tutor,” he says, and they do.

Through the school, they are put in touch with a number of candidates. Nathalie chooses a retired teacher. After school and when practice finishes, they go over Sidney’s homework, and on the weekends, they review the school week. It’s difficult to tell how much it helps. Nathalie doesn’t know. There are times when Sidney looks so frustrated and other times when he looks asleep on his feet from exhaustion.

When Nathalie takes Sidney to have his monthly lunch with April, she smiles a little when Sidney tells her about it. In community college, April has dark eyes and hair like Sidney, but carries herself differently. Although their time together is technically unsupervised, after the first month, she starts inviting Nathalie to join them.

Sidney and April aren’t particularly close. From what Nathalie has been able to gather, they didn’t have much to do with each other until Sidney was placed in April’s care a few years previously. When they see each other they aren’t particularly affectionate towards each other, nor are their conversations are ever particularly in-depth. Yet there is a connection between the two. Sometimes when Nathalie watches them, it almost seems as though they are reaching for each other from a distance, stumbling over Sidney’s one word answers and the questions April sometimes asks twice. The love that they feel to each other is found in the way Sidney will be ready to meet April early, and the way April will shift her weight from side to side whenever it comes time to say goodbye, minutely postponing their parting.

After lunch the three of them walk by the Monongahela River.

While Sidney walks ahead of them, curious about the workers repairing the Mon Wharf, April brings up the topic of adoption.

It’s such a sensitive conversation and Nathalie feels ill-equipped to have it.

They fumble around, each waiting for the other to spell out their intentions. Mario is the unsaid third presence in the conversation and Nathalie doubts that Miranda has neglected to mention Mario’s desire to adopt Sidney to April.

Up ahead of them, Sidney is a small, slight figure. His dark hair is blowing around, getting knotted in the wind. He’s started to talk a little more. The previous weekend, Nathalie had taken Lauren and Sidney to the National Aviary. After studying dinosaurs, Lauren had become fascinated with birds. The three of them had spent the morning watching wetland birds sun themselves, before taking a quick peek at the penguin exhibit. That morning feels far away now. Nathalie feels something in her heart clench and she finds herself thinking of Mario who knew what he wanted and said it so fearlessly. He was always so brave. Stupid too. But he’d gotten so far in life because of that combination.

Nathalie has to say it. She knows she does. When she does, April looks away.

It’s been a long time since Nathalie first came to Pittsburgh, but she remembers what it was like not to know people in this city; not to have the support network to fall back on. But she knows she can’t ever understand what it’s like to be alone like April and Sidney are. April has had to make decisions no one ever should. They have left their mark on her. Nathalie can see it. There is something about the way April holds herself, the way she is with Sidney that makes Nathalie ache. It isn’t fair. Nothing is fair.

“Sidney will always have a home with us,” Nathalie says. She isn’t sure if it’s the right thing to say, but it’s true.

It hasn’t even been a full school term, but Sidney is part of their family. He will always have a place with them, no matter what.

April nods. “Okay.”

Nathalie isn’t sure that April believes her, but it is true. Sidney is part of their family. Nathalie knows it in her bones. They all do. Though their extended family were respecting their wishes and giving Sidney time to settle in before visiting, it hadn’t taken long before Nathalie’s mother had started to refer to Sidney as her eldest grandson. Equally, when Mario had started to look into hiring a good junior hockey trainer for Sid, his brothers had been two of the first people to offer advice.

Maybe he came as a surprise, but they love him.

Growing up, Nathalie used to watch Mario with his open heart and worry so much. He was forever going to a friend or team mate’s aid, or bringing a few notable ones home to crash on his couch or to live in the guest bedroom for months on end. Sometimes he felt so naïve. Now, maybe Nathalie feels like perhaps she had been the naïve one.

 

 

When Nathalie and Sidney get home, Sidney settles down to double checks his homework in the kitchen while she starts cooking dinner. All the other kids are off watching TV. Nathalie suggests Sidney go join them after he finishes checking his last assignment. Shrugging Sidney instead opens his French text book and mutters something about reading ahead. Occasionally Sidney asks for help with his French homework. She tries to help the best she can.

When Lauren comes into the kitchen to get a drink, she hooks her chin over Sidney’s shoulder and loops her arms around him, distracting him from his worksheets. It’s meant to be annoying, Nathalie knows from experience (she used to do that to her brother; she still does when they see each other in the summer which is probably where Lauren got it). But Sidney allows Lauren to invade his space without complaint. The sight of the two of them makes Nathalie smile a little.

Out of the four, Lauren has taken to Sidney completely and Sidney to her. Fearless in the way only a child can be, she does not question it. Sometimes Nathalie overhears the two of them chatting; Lauren has always been reserved but she happily tells Sidney about the book of poems she borrowed from the library and how Arabian horses have one less vertebrae and pair of ribs than other horse breeds. The world seems to constantly delight and fascinate her. Homework however, does not often arouse her interest.

“Are you doing school work for fun, Sid?” Lauren asks. “That’s so boring.”

“It’s not boring,” Sidney mumbles, blushing a little in embarrassment.

“Is,” Lauren tells him.

Nathalie shoos her away. Lauren goes with a smile, leaving Sidney in peace.

 

 

On Monday morning, Sidney hops out of the car before she can wish him a good day.

It’s two steps forward, and one step back on a good day, Nathalie reminds herself as she watches Sidney and Lauren walk to the school gate. Two steps forward, one step back.

 

 

**[2000-2001]**

 

 

The Penguins are a disaster. It isn’t a secret. Everyone in the league knows it. The glory days of the early nineties Stanley Cup runs seem so far away now when there are leaks all over the franchise, from the boardroom to the locker room. The Mellon Arena echoes during games. The Penguins organisation as a whole are on a knife edge. They have lost over three thousand season ticket holders since Mario returned. Other cities are circling the franchise, sensing an easy deal may be brokered. Players are slipping through their fingers; even Jaromír’s eye is roving. Something has to be done, everyone knows it.

The idea of returning to the ice unfolds slowly.

At pre-season training, Mario watches the Pens, watches Jaromír struggle without a good forward to support him. But it isn’t enough, to watch. It was. Mario was so exhausted when he retired, his body so worn. But now? Mario has always been good at getting what he wants, and what if he wants to return to the ice?

Nathalie is unreadable when Mario goes to her. He can’t do it without her – he won’t. That isn’t how they work.

“Do you need to do this?” She asks.

Mario wants to do it. But that isn’t what she asked.

Maybe he does. Maybe there is no maybe about it.

Over the following weeks it becomes a subject that comes up again and again between them. They talk about his health and the risks attached to returning.  They talk too about what it means in terms of the franchise and Mario’s role as owner, and about what it means for them as a family.

“I want our kids to see me play,” he says at one point. “Austin and Alexa never did.”

She sighs. She doesn’t know what she can say to that.

Their family is so young. Sidney is fourteen, Lauren is just thirteen. Stephanie, Austin and Alexa are under five. Mario returning to the ice means they return to a different life – one where Mario is gone for stretches of time, where his time belongs to the team and his health is uncertain. It isn’t an easy decision. But Nathalie agrees to support Mario, she can’t not. It’s always been the two of them standing together when it mattered – this is no different. 

They tell a few close friends about the plan.

Tom Grealish, their long-time friend and executive director of the Mario Lemieux Foundation thinks Mario playing professional hockey again is a joke – he calls up the day after Mario had confided in him, saying he had the weirdest dream that Mario was re-joining the Pens.

“It wasn’t a dream,” Mario tells him, but in a way, it is until Mario begins training with Jay Caufield.

The two of them meet for training sessions after each workday and during the weekend, slowly building up the intensity. It is only then, the reality of Mario’s decision hits. Each night he crawls into bed exhausted. About a week in, he hits breaking point. Physically drained, he either has to give up or keep going. There is no half way or half effort. He has to commit to it, and he does.

Life changes.

Lauren remembers what it was like when Mario was playing, but it’s new to the others. But where Stephanie, Austin and Alexa are curious, Sidney is watchful. On the weekend, Sidney is quiet and difficult to draw into conversation when he and Mario go for their weekly hike at the Raccoon Creek State Park. In the middle of a growth spurt, Sidney is ungainly and all knees and elbows. Ruffling his hair, Mario pulls him close. Spending Saturday morning hiking through the forest with Sidney and the dogs was always the best part of Mario’s week. Mario tells Sidney that.

“Nothing’s going to change,” he adds, and it isn’t a lie. A lot of things are changing, but the important things never do.   

Sidney has a good poker face, Mario will give him that, but Sidney has his tells. Now his eyes dart away from Mario’s.

Mario tries not to push him.

Sometimes you have to see something before you can believe in it.

 

 

Pittsburgh media – and Pittsburgh itself – greets the new of Mario’s return to the ice with delight. 

Right around the time Mario plays his first game back, scoring one goal and getting two assists, he and Nathalie formally adopt Sidney. It was always on the horizon for them; always what they wanted. They made that clear when they first spoke to Miranda and April back in the beginning. However even Mario’s influence could not rush the adoption process. Much of the decision about Sidney’s adoption lies, at least legally, in April’s power. Any application ideally needs her support. She doesn’t rush to give it, and in turn, Mario and Nathalie tried their best not to rush her.

Emotionally, it is Sidney who controls the adoption.

If he doesn’t want it – if he doesn’t feel comfortable, that is it. When they ask if it is something he would want, Mario’s heart skips a beat in the moment between asking and Sidney’s answer; a quick, jerking nod of his head, his eyes meeting theirs for a moment before darting away.

When Mario finds that he can’t speak, Nathalie squeezes his hand before letting go and wrapping her arms around Sidney. 

There is such happiness when the adoption goes through. Sidney is already a part of their family, but having him legally and permanently with them is so significant. The night Miranda drops the papers off, Mario breaks his strict diet, grilling steaks and opening one of his best bottles of red wine.

“Your parents gave us this when we got married,” Nathalie comments, smiling as she takes a sip.  

“It feels like the perfect night for it,” Mario says.

“It does,” Nathalie agrees.

Yet with the joy, there is also a surge of grief that comes with the occasion. April gives her support – legally and emotionally – however, when the adoption is finalised, both she and Sidney react in ways no one bar Miranda expects. There is a sadness to them. The permanence of his place in their family makes both Sidney and April’s thoughts return to the family he lost, and they feel the loss anew.

It is a bittersweet and wonderful time for them and their family.

 

 

**[2001-2002]**

 

 

Of all the Penguins, Jaromír takes a particular shine to Sidney. On days the team can bring their family in, Jaromír likes to skate with Sidney. Whenever Mario is distracted, Jaromír tugs on the back of Sidney’s jersey and steals him away for the morning. Together they play games of keep away in the corner of the rink and sometimes annoy Jean-Sébastien Aubin, by flicking pucks towards him, whether he is guarding the nets or over talking to the Pens coach, Ivan Hlinka.

“I was a small, skinny kid too,” Jaromír explains with a grin. “I have to teach him the tricks.”

When Mario and the Penguins ownership group are forced to trade Jaromír to the Washington Capitals, everyone takes it hard. Whenever Sidney goes to the rink afterward, he still skates, but he stays close to Mario’s side.

“It’s the game,” Mario tells Sidney, but it’s difficult when it feels so personal.

When the Capitals fly out to play the Penguins on December the 11th for their first match up of the season, there is little time to socialise. The game itself isn’t particular important when it comes to team standings, but the press make a fuss of every comment and supposed slight. The rivalry they promote between the two teams – the face off of Mario and Jaromír – whether real or fabricated puts everyone on edge. Despite that, Mario tries to organise some time for someone – if not Mario – to bring Sidney by the visitors’ locker rooms to say a quick hello.  But it doesn’t happen.

Mario apologises to Sidney on the drive home, but in the back seat sitting between Lauren and Austin, Sidney shrugs indifferently. It’s much later, after a visit from Miranda, Mario finds himself pausing. Towards the end of the check in, Miranda had asked how Sidney was coping with Jaromír’s absence. Then, Mario had corrected her; ‘Jaromír’s trade.’ He thinks she was right the first time. A lot of people have left Sidney’s life. It hurts that that hasn’t stopped, that Mario can’t stop Sidney from losing people.

Hockey is a hard game.

 

 

When Mario is selected to represent Canada at the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, he knows it’s probably going to be one of the last times he plays on the international stage.  A year ago, the thought of representing his country was something the felt very away. Though what makes it special isn’t that, but how he gets to share it with his family and with his friends. He thinks having Nathalie and the kids in the stands watching him will be what he remembers more than anything else. It is a different type of knowledge that comes with age. He still wants to win – he always wants to win – but having his family there means so much. They have come so far over the last few years and Mario has never felt that more than when his place on the team is confirmed. 

“That’s going to be you some day,” Wayne Gretzky tells Sidney and Austin when they meet up for dinner after the press conference where Mario’s captaincy of the team is announced.

Austin grins brightly, but Sidney shrugs, still a little diffident. Wayne has a kindness to him; something about his way of relating to people is threaded with it. It doesn’t take long for Austin and Stephanie to start talking to him. Sidney’s always quieter, but Mario can see him becoming more comfortable as the night goes on. When Wayne’s eldest children, Paulina and Ty, ask to leave dinner early and go hang out with their friends, Mario smiles at Sidney, and nudges him a little. From Nathalie, Mario knows that Sidney mostly spends time with Lauren and her friends. A few times Nathalie has offered to host hockey events at their house for Sidney’s school team, Mario too, as offered to arrange tickets for Sidney’s team mates. Yet Sidney has always declined in his own way which saddens Mario. Some of his happiest memories when he was Sidney’s age were with his Nino’s team mates. There are still a few Mario has kept in touch with.

Mario likes the idea of his children being close to Wayne’s. While Paulina is gregarious, Ty is soft spoken and reminds Mario of Wayne. A few months ago _The New York Times_ ran a story about Ty’s hockey ability in comparison to his father’s. It hadn’t been kind.

Sidney is reluctant to leave the table, Mario can tell, but he follows his sisters and Wayne’s kids out of the restaurant. It’ll be good for all of them, Mario thinks, to be friends with kids around their age who know what it’s like to grow up in a hockey house.

Wayne agrees. “They’ll have fun.”

“They’ll get into trouble,” Mario laughs.

Ty and Sidney aren’t the sort of kids to get into trouble; that’s their sisters. When Wayne and Mario finish dinner, they aren’t surprised to find their two boys quietly talking with Stephanie tucked between then, fast asleep against Sidney’s shoulder. Lauren and Paulina take a bit of work to find, but their laughter carries.

It’s a good night.

 

 

Pittsburgh is the home to the Penguins, but Mario knows that for younger players it isn’t a big hockey town. Sidney’s been playing on his school’s senior team for the last few months. The sixteen and seventeen year olds are huge compared to Sidney, but he skates through them like they aren’t there. The local under 16’s team Mario has gotten Sidney a place on, isn’t much better. 

After school Sidney has private coaching, but now it isn’t so much about catching up and establishing the basics, as it is starting to build and refine. On the weekend, Mario and Sidney set up on the lawn and in the driveway. There isn’t much sunshine, but together they race through drills and when they come inside for lunch their faces are red and their sweaty hair is sticking to their skin.

It’s coming to the point where Mario knows he’s going to have to speak to Nathalie. They’ve been putting it off. He knows they have. Over the summer they could have sent Sidney off to any number of camps or intensive clinics. Sidney was still getting his bearings in so many ways, but Mario’s name carries weight. Places could have been made available. Instead he and Nathalie took Sidney home. They spent a month in Montreal with family, and then Mario began training. With allowance made for Sidney’s age and skill level, he joined Mario.

It worked.

However Mario isn’t naïve. A few weeks ago, scouts for the Canadian and US developmental team attended some of Sidney’s away games. Officially they weren’t there to see Sidney; but the hockey world is small. There are talented kids out there, but they were there to see Sidney.

 

 

Despite Wayne and Mario being at ease with the idea of their kids having the run of the Winter Games, Nathalie keeps a close eye on her kids while they are in Utah. Lauren’s reached the age where she wants freedom, but even though the Olympics are in Salt Lake City, Nathalie doesn’t feel comfortable letting her wander unsupervised despite Lauren’s arguments that she’s more than old enough too. Janet Gretzky smiles when Nathalie brings the subject up.

“I bet you were the same at her age.”

If Nathalie’s honest, she was probably worse. But then again, she wanted to go to the mall with her friends after school, not around the Olympic village with Paulina to scope out cute speed skaters and snowboarders. Janet doesn’t seem too worried. Though in her case, she’s probably a little more used to it given how precocious Paulina is. Paulina and Ty are a little younger than Nathalie’s two eldest, but the age difference isn’t so noticeable in person. The pressure of having Wayne as a father would make anyone grow up quicker than most, and they certainly have. Nathalie is used to Mario attracting crowds, but he’s nothing compared to Wayne.

In the end, Nathalie doesn’t change her mind, but she does allow Lauren to go see a movie with Paulina and Ty and some of the other athlete’s kids on the condition Sidney and Stephanie go too. The hotel has set up a screening room for the children and teenagers, so they aren’t going far.

When Nathalie goes to collect her children, she finds them waiting for her outside the screening room. Sidney has Stephanie on his back, giving her a piggyback ride, while Lauren is sitting in an armchair by the windows, watching quietly. By Nathalie’s side she feels Austin reach for Sidney making an unhappy sound about being left out of the fun.

“Where are Paulina and Ty?” Nathalie asks. She’s early; they should still be with the others watching the film.

Lauren shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Nathalie turns to ask Sidney, but he averts his eyes.

She should be upset – Lauren and Sidney promised to stay with the Gretzky kids – but there is something brittle about the way Lauren is holding herself. From inside the screening room, Nathalie hears the faint sound of the film’s soundtrack as the credits begin to roll. 

Lauren gets up, brushing the wrinkles from her jeans. “Can we go?

Something happened. Nathalie knows it. Yet she shakes her head and they wait for Paulina and Ty to emerge from the theatre. When they do, Paulina is indifferent in the most teenager way, while Ty is sullen and won’t look at anyone. It’s only later, after Austin and Alexa are asleep, while Nathalie is getting Stephanie ready for bed, she asks if Sidney is her real brother.

Nathalie stops.

Stephanie bites her lip. “Paulina said he wasn’t. She said he didn’t count.”

Stephanie voice is small and afraid. Nathalie sits down and smooths her hand over the covers.

“Oh, Steph,” Nathalie says. “Sidney’s your brother.”

Stephanie’s face is red and she seems so young. On the other bed, Lauren is silent. But when Nathalie turns to her, it’s clear that Lauren is furious. Lauren doesn’t get angry often; she doesn’t carry things with her. However now her body is tense and her shoulders are drawn up around her ears.

“Paulina’s a liar,” Lauren says, her voice hard. “And Ty is stupid.”

“Lauren,” Nathalie says.

Lauren shakes her head. “They are.”

She won’t say anything more. Nathalie tries to get the full story out of Sidney, but he won’t say anything. It’s only when they’re all back in Pittsburgh, Mario manages to find out something happened between Sidney and Ty. Sidney doesn’t say much, but he’s quieter than usual when he and Mario return from their Saturday morning hike.

“Ty’s been bumped down to the third line on his team,” Mario tells Nathalie while they are preparing lunch.

Nathalie exhales slowly.

Mario nods. “Paulina’s protective.

Paulina is. She’s a good kid. So is Ty. But it’s one thing though for Ty to be compared to his father, it’s another to be compared to Sidney. The Gretzky and Lemieux name aren’t easy to carry at the best of times. It’s even harder when Sidney makes carrying it look so easy from the outside. Mario nods.

“Are you going to speak to Janet and Wayne?” Nathalie asks.

Mario sighs. “Yes.”

**[2002-2003]**

 

 

At fifteen, Sidney's small for his age, but in three years he's gone from a kid who is good with a puck, the one who, well, Mario knows talent. But he's never seen anyone quite like Sidney. During the summer, they train together. Mario always liked to play street hockey after work with all of his kids and to help them work on improving a particular skill or element of their game. However during the summer, Mario starts to train with Sidney. He's still quiet, but on the ice he moves like he can do anything. The more Mario sees, the more he thinks maybe Sidney can. 

Mario's personal trainer, Jay Caufield, pulls him aside towards the end of the summer. 

"Sid's numbers - they're better than some of the rookies I work with," Jay says quietly. 

Mario nods. He knows. 

The years Sidney was more or less ignored on the community rec team have almost been completely recovered. The boys on his school team, the ones who could out skate him through a combination of superior fitness levels and the experience Sidney lacked, now cannot even begin to keep up with him. He’s instincts are now almost matched with knowledge and the training he once lacked. People are starting to notice more than the name on the back of Sidney’s jersey.

It’s a slow summer. Or more specifically, it is a slow news summer. Part way through, a local journalist manages to take a few photographs of them while they are having an on ice session down at the Igloo. They’re pretty low quality shots, but Mario finds himself going back to them. His agent and old friend, Steve Reich, brings them up when they meet up for lunch before the beginning of training camp.

“When are we going to talk about your boy?” Steve asks, as he cuts himself a piece of steak.

Mario feels himself smile. “Jumping the gun a little, aren’t we.”

Steve eyes Mario. “I’ve been receiving interview requests.”

“For Sid?”

Steve nods and takes a sip of wine. “You know who else has been calling? Pat.”

“Brisson?”

“The one and only.”

“Is he trying to steal me away from you?” Mario grins.

“More like he’s trying to gets Sid’s number.”

Mario laughs incredulously. “What did you tell him?”

Steve grins. “I told him I’ve got dibs.”

“Do you?” Mario asks.

Steve laughs. “I’d be stupid if I didn’t want to.”  

When Mario was Sidney’s age, all Mario thought about was making the NHL. Everything was channelled towards it – every team he played on was a stepping stone, every game was a chance to make himself noticed, remembered. It’s different being on the other side watching Sidney give everything he has and do everything he can.

When Mario was staring out, players used to interview agents in the summer before being drafted. It wasn’t an especially big window from then to the draft, but the time allowed each side to get to know each other and begin to trust each other. Steve was still signing guys like Danny Briere, Scott Gomez, and Brad Stuart when they were that age. That was only a few years ago. However now, Mario knows it isn’t unusual for fifteen, sixteen year olds to have agents.

When pressed, Steve admits it’s a game of probability. “It’s difficult to know where any of them will be in a few years. But you could say same about draftees.”

Mario could. He’s seen guys drafted in the top twenty wash out, while guys who were barely drafted turn into some of the best players in the league. Mario knows Sidney though. Even at this stage, Mario knows Sidney is going to be remembered. Steve clearly knows that too.

“Okay,” Mario allows. “Let’s talk about Sid.”

 

 

The press, of course, do not keep a respectful distance for too long. 

It's a story, Nathalie knows this. A tragic beginning and a hopeful ending and maybe a future NHL'er just like Mario. Only Sidney isn't a story. 

Nathalie has never been comfortable with the way the press focuses on their children. Mario doesn’t either. However Mario thinks the world of Sidney and sometimes he can’t see beyond that. The thing about Sidney is he's starting to make waves. On family days, Mario takes all of the kids to skate with the team and he can't help but play a game of shinny with his kids. All of his kids are good, but Sidney? Sidney is something amazing. Everyone sees it. And it's a ready-made story. Pittsburgh's star adopts future hockey star. Nathalie sees the press converging, sees how their camera lenses are starting to turn to Sidney.

He's a teenager though. Just a teenager. He isn't a news story.

She tries to keep him away from that side of it, but she can’t. It’s one thing when he is thirteen and learning trick shots from Jaromír Jágr, but now, at fifteen the Pittsburgh press wants to follow Sidney around, wants to speak to him after Mario’s games, and last week she caught a local sports journalist taking pictures of Sidney while he was playing on his school team. Nathalie is used to the media now. However the sight of the journalist at Sidney’s game, sitting in the crowd amidst the parents and kids felt invasive and –  it’s the deciding point for her.

Numerous teams from various leagues and schools have all been making overtures towards Sidney. Towards Mario too, and even towards her. Some with more vigour than others. The CHL in particular has been throwing its weight – or its money – around, much to Mario’s distaste.

“He was always going to have to leave,” Mario says quietly, when she shares her concerns with him. “The OHL and QMJHL have been scouting him.”

They’re doing more than that – with Sidney’s dual citizenship they’ve both been fighting over him. Legally, Sidney could probably go play for any of them, but so far they have managed to keep him in Pittsburgh. That was only a temporary solution; Nathalie sees that now. Although Pittsburgh has the Penguins, they don’t have the quality of junior teams that Sidney needs at this point in his development. Mario has Sidney working with a trainer, but it’s not a solution. Nathalie hadn’t thought sending Sidney away was one either.

It’s a daunting thought.

Sidney is so young. It feels too soon to start thinking about him leaving.

Mario presses a kiss to her temple. “We’re his home.”

It sounds so simple put like that. Nathalie tucks her face into the crook of Mario’s neck. When Mario was Sidney’s age, he was in QMJHL playing for Laval Voisins. Natalie remembers that. She didn’t feel young then. She remembers that. Neither did Mario. Bold and brilliant, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She still can’t.

Sidney feels older and younger than Mario at fifteen.

Of all of the offers, the one they keep returning to is from Shattuck-Saint Mary’s. Accepting the place they offered Sidney would send him so far away from them, but it would send him away from the circus. Sidney will still be wearing the Lemieux name on his back. Nathalie doesn’t fool herself that that name is always easy to carry. However, at least in Shattuck, he can be a kid. In Pittsburgh, he is the future of hockey.

It’s late and the house is so quiet. The kids are all asleep and at the foot of their bed, the dogs are snoring peacefully. It’s the right thing, Nathalie knows. The hockey program Shattuck’s offers is one of the best in the country. Equally, the educational program is excellent. Sending him there will give them some control over where Sidney is, who will be teaching him and who will be coaching him. The draft, when it happens for whatever league Sidney ends up committing to, could send him anywhere. They’ve been talking about Shattuck’s for a while now with April, but now the decision has been made, it weighs on Nathalie. Not all decisions are easy. Especially not ones like this. But it is the right one. Nathalie knows that, believes that.

Sidney is bright and talented and Nathalie wants the best for him. Shattuck-Saint Mary’s is that, at least for now.  

 

 

The first few weeks at Shattucks' are the hardest for Sidney. Away from home, April, Nathalie and Mario, and his siblings are just voices on the phone. They feel so far away. Sidney finds himself not quite knowing what to do or how to act. There is hockey, and Sidney knows that, understands that. But he doesn’t understand anything else, least of all Jack Johnson, or why Jack decides to take Sidney under his wing.

Sidney has never met someone like Jack.

Jack seems larger than life to Sidney. He is so loud. He is always the first to speak up in any given situation. Without being conscious of it, Sidney finds himself falling into a routine with him. At meals they sit together, they get changed in stalls next to each other in the locker room and in class Jack always saves a seat for Sidney. They divide their time between racing to finish homework and managing a heavy schedule of practices, games, and road trips.

Being around Jack, makes Sidney feel brave. Stupid too, when they take on the baseball team in a fight they were going to lose from the start. But brave. Afterwards they end up in Jack’s room, nursing their bruised knuckles and with ice on their split lips and it makes no sense at all. None of it, but Sidney laughs anyway. Exhilarated and stupid, Sidney knocks his shoulder against Jack’s. Jack grins and knocks his shoulder back against Sidney’s.

“That was so good.”

“No it wasn’t,” Sidney snorts. They’re in so much trouble. But for once, Sidney doesn’t really care.

They end up with detentions and their parents are called. However, even afterwards when the adrenalin has all but been forgotten in the face of Nathalie’s quiet disappointment, Sidney remembers the feeling of having Jack there, at his back. It’s something Sidney can’t quite work out. Sometimes Sidney finds himself watching Jack, trying to figure him out. He’s small, but he acts like he isn’t.

It’s so different at Shattucks'.

Everything feels closer and pressed against him. Sidney is here for hockey, but even hockey is different here. In Pittsburgh each game had a different tone. There was a certain sharpness to the expectations held in regard to him. It didn’t take long for Sidney to become used to the conditional support of home games, and the way people would unfold at away games, letting him see the anger in their eyes and hear the things they would never dare say in front of Nathalie or Mario. He tried to explain it to Lauren once. He isn’t sure if he managed. He isn’t sure if Jack would understand it either.

It probably doesn’t matter.

 

 

From Pittsburgh, Nathalie hears all about Jack and hears the barely hidden wonder in Sidney’s voice.

But it takes her aback when, one day, Sidney ends one of their calls by saying, “I love you,” instead of his usual ‘talk to you later,’

Before she can gather herself together to reply, he quickly hangs up on her.

For a while, she just sits there.

When Mario gets home, she tries to tell him, but he shakes his head in amusement.

“Of course Sid loves you,” he says like it’s that simple.

For him it is. Sidney has always adored Mario.

Nathalie finds herself laughing a little. “He said it, though. He said it.”

He did, and that makes Mario smile and kiss her.

 

 

At the end of the year, the Shattuck-Saint Mary's Sabres go to the U18 AAA National Championship. It’s a great year for Sidney, a formative year, Mario thinks. From the fifty seven games Sidney plays with the Sabres, he recorded 72 goals and 162 points. But at sixteen, Sidney is ready to move on. They all know it, even Shattuck-Saint Mary though the principal and coaching staff reach out to try and get Sidney to stay with them until he graduates. It’s futile though.

The dispute between the various leagues over Sidney’s draft status is resolved when the QMJHL reference legacy rules that Mario had not been aware even existed. Mario wouldn’t be surprised if the same or similar rules will be applied by the selection committee of the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships team. Although earlier Hockey Canada they decided Sidney did not have the depth of play needed to make the U-18 Junior World Cup roster for the 2003 team, their conservatism will surely give way before the final roster selection is finalised.

The draft, when it arrives, sends Sidney from Faribault, Minnesota to Moncton, New Brunswick to play for the Rimouski Océanic. It’s a good team. They have a good record. The local high school Sidney will attend isn’t Shattuck’s, but Sidney’s studious. Mario isn’t particularly worried.

 

 

**[2003-2004]**

 

 

Juniors is different. Rimouski Océanic is located in Canada, even further away from Pittsburgh than Shattuck-Saint Mary's. While there, he ends up billeting with a young family. The wife works in accounts for the team. In the evenings Nathalie calls, and in the billet family's kitchen, Sidney tells her about his day at Harrison Trimble High School, about practice, about the game (if they have played one), his homework, what he ate for dinner. Things like that. 

Sidney’s French is better now. Or it is getting better. He doesn’t really have any options. Sometimes though, Nathalie helps him. Her voice slow and clear as she goes over verbs and helps him piece together sentences. Instead of school work, now they practice how Sidney will ask his coach for more time on the ice, and how to explain exactly the way he wants his skates to be sharpened.

It’s comforting.

If he closes his eyes, he could be in Pittsburgh, in the kitchen with her. The sound of the billet family's kids playing in the living room could be Austin and Stephanie, and Lauren arriving home from her after school job. It feels so real; he is almost there with them instead of not. 

Sidney doesn't close his eyes though. 

He will get used to this, he tells himself at night when he is in the spare bedroom that is to be his (at least for now). He knows he will. He’s done it before. He’s done it so many times before. He will do it again.

Sidney doesn't get upset easily. Before he met Mario, Sidney hardly felt anything at all. Now, so far away from him and Pittsburgh – from everything – Sidney wishes he could be like that again. Inside his chest, he aches and aches and feels so young. A kid. It must be so obvious. It has to be. Of all the things he can hide, it is this he can’t. Not here, not now. He hates it.

On a road trip, one of the guys smuggle a bottle of rum onto the bus. After lights out, they pass the bottle around. When it reaches Sidney, the guy sitting next to him laughs and reaches across Sidney and passes it to the guy sitting on the other side of him. 

"No lectures tonight, Mario Junior," he says. 

Sidney doesn't flinch. He doesn't. It's just a nickname. There are worse one to have. Worse reputations to have. It's nothing. Just a joke. A stupid one, really, given that Sidney knows Jaromír Jágr (not that Sidney would ever mention that; he’s not completely stupid). But whatever.

At sixteen Sidney is a bit of a fuck up. He supposes he can admit that, if only to himself.

His team doesn’t seem to know what to do with him.  But not many of the teams he’s been on ever have. He's used to being on teams with guys who... they're his team mates but they're not much more than that. He doesn’t know why he expected juniors to be different.

That night he goes to bed sober. The next night he scores the game winning goal. When Nathalie calls, he tells her about that.

 

 

(If Sidney focuses on looking forward, he can’t look backwards.

That’s what he tells himself, anyway.)

 

 

During the school holiday break, Sidney finds himself watching scouting tapes with Mario. It’s strange really. Sidney knows some of the guys on the tapes; played with or against them. Sometimes Mario asks Sidney about them. Sidney is never quite sure what to say. Mario’s knowledge base is so extensive. Sidney can’t hope to add his thoughts when it comes to that, yet sharing personal anecdotes feels awkward and compromising.

This year all anyone is talking about is Alexander Ovechkin, the Russian prodigy. Unlike Sidney who has almost given up on having another growth spurt, Ovechkin is easily over six foot, nearly two hundred pounds and seems ready to hit the ground running. He plays like he owns the ice, and as of yet, no one has been able to dispute that. The report Penguins head scout, Greg Malone, put together said pretty much that. Flipping through it, Sidney glances over passages where Malone writes about Ovechkin’s strength and athleticism, and how he goes through players like they aren’t there. More or less billed as the complete package, league wide, Ovechkin is the clear first draft pick.

Yet in the den, tapes of Evgeni Malkin have been on high rotation alongside Ovechkin’s for the last year or so.

Settling next to Mario, Sidney watches the footage of Malkin skate against guys who look twice his size. It isn’t uncommon Sidney knows – where kid his age are on school teams or in junior leagues, players like Malkin are already pro in the KHL. However in contrast to Ovechkin, Malkin is all limbs and shoulders yet to fill out. Even with his pads, it shows. He’s good though. Mario wouldn’t be watching his tapes if Malkin wasn’t. The last year has been halting for him though – some highs and lows at international competitions, mixed with some worrying injury reports. If Ovechkin is a sure thing, Malkin is a relative unknown.

“What do you think?” Mario asks.

Sidney shrugs.

There is something about the way Malkin plays. Maybe he doesn’t make things happen exactly like Ovechkin, but Malkin sees things. He has instincts. Sidney doesn’t know how else to put it. He’s young though. The ten and a half months that separate him from Ovechkin show, especially when Mario puts in tapes from the under-18 championships in Belarus where Malkin is sent off the ice for a hit from behind.

“He comes back out to support his team,” Mario comments as they wait to see Malkin, sans jersey and skates, do just that.

Mark Kelley, the Penguins' European scout, had written a report about that. To Kelley, it showed leadership. It’s strange how people like Kelley and Malone view and interpret player’s actions. There must be files about Sidney floating around the league, in coaches’ offices and dog-eared copies inside team owners’ dens. He wonders what’s in them. He isn’t sure he wants to know. From the corner of his eye, Sidney watches Mario rewind the footage to re-watch Malkin’s participation in a power play.

Sidney tries not to pay too much attention to what people say about him. It’s hard though. At times they seem to know more about him than he does. A while ago, a journalist dug up an interview he did for a local TV sports report when he was seven years old. When his agent, Steve, mentioned it in passing, Sidney hadn’t known what he was talking about. Sidney couldn’t remember doing anything like that when he was a kid. When he found the clip, it was almost like watching someone else. He had watched the interview on the screen on his school computer. Afterwards he bookmarked the link. He hasn’t managed to make himself watch it again. He thinks Mario and Nathalie have probably seen it too, but then they work so closely with Steve. It wouldn’t make sense for them not to have watched it at least once. They haven’t spoken about it though. Sidney isn’t sure if he wants them too or not. Not is easier.

 

 

People talk about Mario. People always have.

That’s how most conversations about Sidney begin. Or end.

Comparisons are bound to be made. That is what Steve once said. He told Sidney that. Sidney isn’t sure how he’s meant to feel. That’s not the right answer though.

 

 

(There are articles about his Dad too, about how he was a goalie, about how he almost made it to the NHL. A couple of shaky VHS clips have gone up online.

Sidney has those bookmarked too. But he hasn’t watched any of them).

 

 

Each year, Mario attends the draft in his capacity as team captain and owner, and as a family they attend the event if they can. The 2003-2004 entry draft falls on a Saturday this year, Mario and Nathalie pull Sidney from school Friday afternoon and allow him to fly out to meet them in Raleigh, North Carolina.

"This will be you next year," Mario tells Sidney. 

A lot of people are saying that. A lot of people want to know what Sidney thinks and how he feels about that. Sidney hasn't quite worked out the answer. While they wait for the car that will take them to the draft ceremony, Sidney fiddles with his cuff links. Lauren makes a face and grabs his hands and laces her fingers through his. Sidney doesn't know why he's nervous. He has nothing to be nervous about. He isn't being drafted. It isn’t his year. It’s Evgeni Malkin’s.

Sidney knows all about Malkin, but he's different in person. 

Sidney knows a lot of hockey players. He’s grown up around them and lives alongside them. He knows people are different off the ice than they are on it. But in person Malkin is dopey. It's like his limbs are too long for his body and he doesn't quite know what to do with them. He's kind of stupid too. He attends the entry draft wearing a Red-Wings t-shirt and hat. Surely he must have known that he was going to be a Penguin? Of course, technically, teams’ picks can change right up until the draft, but the amount of attention the Penguins have shown him thus far must have made him aware that they wanted him. 

"He's totally giving you bad ideas," Stephanie teases quietly. "You're so going to turn up to your draft wearing Dad's jersey, aren't you?"

"No!" Sidney hisses. "Of course not."

His siblings laugh at him, like they don't believe him which is unfair. Sidney might want to be a Penguin more than anything but he'd be happy to be on any team in the league. He doesn't care which (even the Flyers would be okay with Sidney, which, Sidney thinks, is saying something). As long as he gets to play hockey, he'll be happy. 

After the ceremony, Mario takes them all to meet Evgeni and his family. Helpfully there is a translator, but everyone is talking at once and he kind of looks stressed out. 

When Sidney is introduced, Evgeni lights up in recognition. "Sidney Lemieux."

Sidney blushes. He's still not used to how people know who he is - how someone who lives on the other side of the world knows his name. He shakes Evgeni’s hand and then lets his sisters and younger brother push him aside so they can talk to Evgeni. By now, all of the Red Wing gear has been replaced by the Penguins gold and black. But he blushes when they tease him. Sidney personally thinks he deserves it, but he doesn’t say it. It’s much more fun to listen to Alexa say it instead.   

Later, while Mario and Nathalie are speaking to Evgeni's parents, Evgeni grins at him and through his translator, tells Sidney how good he is, how he has watched Sidney's games. 

It makes Stephanie laugh. "I'm way better than Sidney," she tells Evgeni. 

That in turn, makes Evgeni laugh and nod. "Me too," he gets the translator to tell them. 

 

 

Sanja finds it all very funny. "I turn my back on you for one minute Zhenya, and you go and make a new best friend?" 

"You're not my best friend," Evgeni tells him.

"I am better than Mario Jr. could ever hope to be."

Evgeni snorts. Sanja is an awful friend. He stole Evgeni 's rightful draft spot. Number two? Evgeni 's always number one.

When he says as much, Sanja tips his head back and laughs.

Alone for the first time since arriving in America for the draft, Sanja eyes are still bright.  There is a hint of the exhaustion he must be feeling exposed in the wrinkles of his once pressed suit pants and in the way he slouches against the hotel mini bar. Evgeni feels exhausted too. He waited so long for this day, and now he is to be a Penguin.

Stripping out of his jersey and suit jacket, Evgeni watches Sanja watch him. If Sanja were not here, Evgeni would carefully lay out the jersey Mario Lemieux gave him. Sanja notices though and laughs a little as he reaches over to hook his fingers through Evgeni’s belt loops and tugs him close.

“You looked so stupid when they announced your name,” Sanja says with a grin.

Evgeni doesn’t care. When Sanja kisses him, Evgeni bites his lip instead of kissing back because he feels like he shouldn’t let Sanja get away with saying things like that when he gets away with everything else. Sanja just laughs before going over and helping himself to a drink from the mini bar. Later, when Sanja follows him into the shower, Evgeni licks the taste of it out of his mouth.

 

 

**[2004-2005]**

 

 

During the summer, Mario spends most of his pre-season training feeling old and worn.

“You are old and worn out compared to Sid,” Jay says with a wiry grin.

It’s true.

Sidney is all legs and knobbly teenage knees, and he never seems to tire. Mario calls Wayne a few times to complain, but he has no pity.

“Stop bragging,” Wayne laughs.

Mario swears at him, but Mario’s laughing while he does it, because that’s true too. Mario is so proud of Sidney. Each and every day Sidney is nipping at Mario’s heels. Experience is the only thing that keeps Mario setting the pace instead of trying to match it. In a year or two it will be the opposite, but Mario doesn’t think he’ll mind too much. He doesn’t mind now, even when Sidney is up hours before Mario each morning, while Mario shuffles out of bed, his muscles stiff and his joints creaking.

It’s easy to forget that the collective bargaining agreement renegotiation is coming up, easy to spend another day in the sun with his wife and his kids.

But slowly the deadline nears. In the unique position as both a team owner and a player, Mario’s role in the renegotiation talks is ambiguous. No one, not even Mario knows what exactly it is, only that he must be careful and remember his place (whatever that may be).

Talks come and go.

The NHLPA makes an offer. The NHL accepts parts of it, and rejects others.

Mario is optimistic. They all are.

However, then talks stall. Details from confidential meetings are leaked to the press.

It is no secret that the Penguins as a team and as a franchise, are struggling. That is not news. As much as Mario wishes he could shield Sidney – his entire family – from that, he cannot. The talks are meant to change things, meant to help secure the future of teams like the Penguins. It’s difficult though, to see the talks as anything but a disappointment thus far. There is a disconnect between all of the talk from Bettman and the reality of Mario’s team. It feels like too little, too late. As each day passes the Penguins franchise feels like it’s slipping from his fingertips.  They’re running out of options. He is running out of options.

Behind closed doors, Mario meets with board members and the coaching staff to work out possible contingency plans. Outside the Civic Arena he sees the restlessness in his friends and team mates. Scattered across the world, they wait. Some are more patient than others. Rumours of various players contacting various European leagues abound, while the younger players go back and forth between taking their chance on the NHL or playing another year on their university team. As part of the Penguins contingency plans, the coaching staff at Wilkes Barre have been told to prepare for their roster possible gaining additions. (Wilkes Barre head coach, Michel Therrien, had perked up and joked about the prospect of having Malkin on his roster. However for the time being, Mario is satisfied with Malkin spending a little extra time in the KHL). As far as Penguins contingency plans go, it’s one of the few that Mario doesn’t think will fall though.

As the negotiations fail to progress, Mario finds himself going quieter and quieter, confused and then angry. Sidney watches – Mario doesn’t fool himself into thinking Sidney hasn’t noticed. Sidney always notices. Even now, even when they have come so very far, Sidney notices and as Mario finds himself at a loss as Sidney becomes hesitant. Like he hasn’t done in years, he holds himself carefully and chooses his words even more so.

 “They won’t cancel the season, will they?” Sidney asks at one point.

Mario shakes his head, because they won’t. They wouldn’t. But they do. On the sixteenth of February, Gary Bettman cancels the 2004-05 NHL season.

 

 

The next time Sidney sees Evgeni, it isn't in Pittsburgh like Sidney expected, but in Grand Forks where they are competing against each other at in the World Junior Championships. 

In general, Sidney isn't particularly good at being friendly or being social. He knows it's important, but he's never quite figured out how it all works. Usually he just sticks to what he's good at. He smiles and tries to be polite and he makes an effort to remember people’s names. Usually that works, though, over the summer Steve had worked with Sidney. They practiced answers to common questions and ran through practice interviews. At the time, it was tedious but now, he has to admit, it takes some of the anxiety away from interviews.

There is a difference though, between being friendly to the press and making friends with someone. Sidney feels it keenly in Grand Forks. However before he left, Mario asked him to say hello to Evgeni if Sidney saw him and a few days after arriving, Sidney sees him in the hotel lobby with a few other members of the Russian team. There is no translator this time, so after calling out Evgeni's name and waving 'hello' they're kind of stuck. 

But Sidney says hello. Mario will be happy. And it's - Sidney knows they are playing against each other, but it's kind of good to see Evgeni. He smiles brightly at Sidney looks happy to see him and. Yeah. It isn't too bad. 

Then Canada wins and Russia doesn't. 

 

 

(When Sidney sees Evgeni at the airport, they don't look at each other).

 

 

In Moncton, Sidney waits for Worlds and all that had accompanied it, to slip away from him. There is school, homework, and hockey. A combination of all three usually pulls Sidney forward one way or another. Time passes, but people are still interesting in how he played and in reliving the goals he scored. Journalists – and, Sidney supposes, scouts too – have been coming to his games for almost as long as Sidney can remember, but with the NHL draft only months away, the media presence in his life seems to intensify. His ranking status is like a punctuation mark in each conversation, second only to the predictions of where he will end up. It feels like a jinx to talk about either, but he does his best. He isn’t sure if it’s enough, but he tries.

Steve arranges conference calls every week or so to talk business (because Sidney has become one).

Sometimes, between listening to Steve list interview requests and Mario talk about a potential Nike deal, Sidney wonders what his rookie year will be like. None of the rookies Mario has introduced Sidney to over the years have had half as many contracts and deals in the works as he seems to. His current team mates certainly don’t – though that isn’t something they talk about. At least not with Sidney.

It is strange how he can know his team mates so well, but not know them.

One season down, Sidney is more or less used to Rimouski Océanic – more or less used to his team mates. He’s settled on the first line Dany Roussin and Marc-Antoine Pouliot. Pouliot was the starting centre before Sidney was drafted to Océanic, but switched to wing when Sidney joined the team. For the most part, Pouliot doesn’t seem to outwardly mind. The three of them skate well together and for better or for worse, they treat him with affection that might be akin to friendship.

Sometimes when Jack calls, Sidney has stories to tell. Sometimes Jack doesn’t call bullshit on him. People are talking about Jack too. Not that they talk about that. In their own way, Sidney supposes everyone plays their cards close. Some closer than others. Around the two of them, momentum is building. The routine of school and hockey begins to change shape. Lately, Steve has been bringing Sidney more and more proposals from companies wanting to sponsor him. Sidney turns down most of them. The thought of them makes something in his chest tighten in a way he wishes wasn’t familiar.

In the locker room, Sidney fiddles with his laces and tries not to listen to the pounding of his heart inside his chest.

He is going somewhere. This time next year he could be anywhere.

So much is planned, but that, where he will end up, isn’t.

Sidney doesn’t quite know what to do with that. Even when he was thirteen and so frightened of disappointing Natalie and Mario – of being sent back to State Care, there were plans for his future. He knows that, even if back then he was terrified of placing any hope in those plans ever being actualised. Mario and Nathalie are used to looking ahead, for him. For the longest time, they had to because he just couldn’t.

Back before them, he thought in days and weeks. Sometimes he could only think ahead in hours. Time was divided into period where he was with April and periods where he was cycled through emergency foster care and temporary care placements. Sometimes days slipped away from him. Sometimes weeks. Sometimes he was so very glad that they did. Some of his memories are indistinct; shadows of places, a blur of faces, and half-forgotten names. Some aren’t. Some are vivid and catch him off guard when he isn’t careful. The edges still sharp, even after so many years.

There have been conference calls about that too – about the questions Sidney has and will be asked about his past.

It’s strange how things that are so personal can be made so impersonal.

A few times after those calls, Mario or Nathalie call him afterwards. April too. So much has changed since he was nine years old being sent off to live with a cousin he met once at a family gathering. But he still remembers how exhausted April was, and how she would cry in the shower where she thought he couldn’t hear. He remembers not looking at her when she finally asked for help. He thinks he always will.

She worries about him. They all do. That’s what the press miss. No matter how many times they ask the same questions and he gives them the same answers.

When she or his parents call after the conference calls, he understands why, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. Can’t, maybe. He doesn’t know. He likes the even, steady sound of their voices on the end of the line and how with them, there is no silence to fill. If he’s careful, it can steady his heart and take the restless energy out of his limbs. If he tries, it can hold him over.

“Not long now,” Mario says.

From him, it sounds like a promise. His voice sounds so sure and Sidney lets his confidence wash over him.

“No, not long.”

 

 

While the Penguins sit idle the Océanic’s power through, taking out the President’s Cup. The win qualifies them for the Memorial Cup. Going into the tournament, they feel unbeatable, only they are. When they face the London Knights in the finals, nothing they do seems to matter. The game is a shut out. Sidney leaves the tournament with an injured knee, and a cold.

“I’m fine,” he tells Mario afterwards.

And he is, more or less.

His knee is only tweaked a little, and it’s not like he’s never played through a cold before. Besides, with only a few days before the NHL Prospect Combine; Sidney doesn’t have many other choices. It is decided he will sit out on the majority of the physical sessions, however the Prospect Combine isn’t really about those tests. It’s about him – about meeting with the teams and selling himself.

Steve seems confident that Sidney can do that, even with a headache and sore throat.

Sidney doesn’t disagree.

 

 

With the lockout still in effect, the date for the lottery draft is still unconfirmed. The uncertainty makes every member of the Lemieux house restless. Over the phone, Lauren can hear the nerves Sidney is trying to hide, and the cold he is downplaying. On his way to the NHL Prospect Combine in Toronto, Sidney won’t say anything. Clearly afraid of jinxing himself, he doesn’t stay on the line for long. Instead he makes some lame comment about the gate for his flight opening and manages to hang up on Lauren before she can hand the phone over to their mother.

It’s annoying and lame and Lauren knows Sidney too well to let him get away with it, but this is different. They all know that. For all that Sidney reaching the NHL was taken as a given, it feels scary to think that in a few weeks, Sidney will be drafted and could go anywhere. None of them want to think about where – the Penguins have some of the best odds to get the first draft pick, but odds only mean so much. They all know that. They’ve always known that. The Prospect Combine represents the last step before the draft.

At night, Austin slips into Lauren’s room and clumsily climbs into her bed, waking her. Pressing himself close to her, he sniffs a little against the cotton of her t-shirt.

“I don’t want Sid to go away again,” he tells her, his voice sounding terribly young and worried.

Lauren rubs his back gently. “Sid will be home soon,” she tries to tell him, because he will be.

The Combine runs for a few days. After that, he will fly back to Rimouski to finish out the last of the school year. Then he will come home to Pittsburgh. That’s the plan. 

Austin makes a small sound that hurts Lauren to hear.

“It doesn’t matter where he goes,” she tells him. “He’s always going to be our brother.”

Lauren knows that. It’s one of the truest things she does know. But they’re their father’s kids. None of them are quite daring enough to say what they want. Bone deep superstitions make them cautious, cautious to say too much – but never to want too much and they want this. The fear of jinxing themselves hangs low and heavy. Their father has his laces, and they have their silence. Juniors sent Sidney to another country; the NHL draft could send him anywhere, to any team. Lauren knows how the uncertainty scares Austin, but there is so much that is exciting about the upcoming draft. Lauren knows that and she tries to keep that in mind now. Sidney has worked so hard and sacrificed so much to reach this point.

Soon, Sidney will be home. He will most probably be jet lagged, over tired and just as unwilling to talk to her as he was on the phone. It will annoy her and it will be a comfort. As much as everything else changes, Sidney will still be Sidney.

He needs them too – he needs them to be excited and happy and to pull him out of his head. Lauren knows that.

When he calls the following day, he sounds awful. His cold sounds like it’s mutated into the flu. He coughs and croaks and insists that he’s okay while refusing to tell her about any of the meetings he took with any of the teams. Not willing to push, Lauren lets him change the subject and tells him about one of the novels she’s reading. She is always reading a few books at once. It’s a habit that Stephanie can’t understand, and one that Sidney only manages during brief periods early in the summer. For the last few months he’s been slowly working his way through _The Illiad_.

Sidney isn’t great with people. She isn’t either.

When they were kids, they shared a handful of friends. However in retrospect, they were mostly her friends. For all the media training their father and Steve have given Sidney, she knows Sidney isn’t great with strangers. Sometimes people misinterpret that as aloofness. Sometimes it means he unknowingly excludes himself from others.

The teams he met with today, the ones that came specifically to meet him; they want to see the best in him. They want him to be as complete a package as their father was all those years ago. Lauren isn’t sure if their father was. It’s hard to know, hard to see past all of his many achievements and the confidence with which he carries himself now. It’s probably made harder by his presence there by Sidney’s side. With the lock out, he flew out to watch the Océanic’s play for the Memorial Cup, before accompany Sidney to Toronto for the Combine.

Sidney has another day or so of meetings. Maybe more. Before the lockout, only one of the bottom five teams, would have the chance to land Crosby. The formula is set to change. Which for Sidney, means he has meetings after meetings.  The NHL is reported to be working on a formula for the next draft that would give every team a chance to draft first overall, but some teams' chances would be better than others. However, a few hours later, Lauren is woken by lights being switched on and the sound of their phone ringing and ringing.

 

 

At about 3am, Sidney’s chest cold worsens and Mario takes Sidney to hospital.

 

 

The following day of meetings is cancelled. Mario and Natalie go back and forth with Steve regarding their next move. The teams still want to meet with Sidney, but he is exhausted. From the doorway of the hospital room Mario watches Sidney sleep. He hasn’t stopped for nearly a year. He’s either been playing hockey or training to play hockey for months. Other prospects came to the Combine prepared to impress, Sidney came fresh from a successful play off run and then the Memorial Cup tournament. It is no wonder Sidney’s cold gets the better of him.

The rasp in Sidney’s breath had been there for days. Yesterday morning, Mario had overheard him coughing in the shower. He shouldn’t have been at the Combine. It’s Mario’s job to look after Sidney and this weekend he failed wretchedly.

 “I’m okay,” Sidney says when Mario gets off the phone, his words slurred with sleep as he blinks slowly awake.

It is a lie, but it’s clear Sidney thinks he’s telling the truth.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget how young he is.

He’s done so well. From the feedback Mario heard, Sidney impressed everyone who had spoken to him. He’s done enough, but Mario knows Sidney won’t believe that.

 

In the end, after consultation with the medical staff, Sidney is cleared to return to the Combine the following day, though in a limited context. The physical testing component of the Combine is ruled completely off limits, though Sidney’s involvement was previously limited due to his knee. Although it was only tweaked, no one wanted to take any chances, especially not for something as meaningless as the Combine. Because it was meaningless. Mario could admit that. The Penguins management would probably disagree, but Mario didn’t particular care about how Sidney tested. He knew how Sidney played – everyone knew how Sidney played.

He didn’t need test results to tell him what he already knew. No one did. 

 

 

(Mario knows his son).

 

 

It feels like treading water being back in Pittsburgh. With Sidney’s final exam finished with and his last Océanic game long since over, he feels restless. Steve has limited Sidney’s time with the press, as has his father. For that Sidney is grateful. But with only a few spaced out interviews organised before the lottery, time seems to be moving so slowly. All Sidney can do now is wait. He hates it. Restless, his skin buzzes and his mind races. He can’t sit still, can’t read any of the books Lauren has lent him. He ends up taking the dogs to a run around the neighbourhood. When he gets back, the dogs are exhausted and Nathalie looks worried.

“You don’t like running.”

Sidney doesn’t know what that has to do with anything.

Nathalie pours him a glass of water and watches Sidney drink it.

At lunch time Sidney manages to escape the house to have lunch with April. This, for some reason, makes April bite back a smile.  

“It’s not funny,” he grumbles.

“Of course not,” she agrees.

There is a hint of laughter in her voice. Sidney missed it.

While he was in Rimouski, she started an administrative position at Allegheny General Hospital. She had sent him a business card and a pen with the hospital’s logo on it. Sidney carries the card in his wallet. He’s pretty sure he left back in his billet family’s home. April offers Sidney a new one when he meets her at her office. However he had been distracted by the sight of all the newspaper clippings and photographs she’d put up around her desk. He knows she’s proud, but it was a bit embarrassing to see his face in all of them.

“Get used to it, kiddo,” April laughs.

Sidney isn’t. He doesn’t think he ever will.

He doesn’t know how Mario does it.

All anyone wants to talk about is his future. They all ask the same questions. Sidney can only reword the same answer over and over again. There are no promises. It feels like too huge of a jinx to say a single word about the possibility of becoming a Penguin. That’s all it is at this point. A possibility. Not a probability – which Sidney doesn’t understand how journalists can refer to. Nothing is set in stone. Nothing.

“It’s going to be okay,” April tells him when they part at the end of her lunch break. “Whichever way it goes, it’s going to be okay.”

 

 

(Sidney knows which way he wants it to go. That’s what frightens him).

 

 

On the 14th of July, the lockout ends. The lottery date is decided upon.

Suddenly there is a count down.

Sidney and Mario both do interview after interview.

If there is a narrative, they are nearing the climax. One of them, anyway.

 

 

It comes down to a lottery ball.

Possibility vs Probability.

 

 

It comes down to luck.

 

 

When the Penguins win the first draft pick for the 2005 entry draft, Mario drives home in a daze. All year he had been preparing himself to send Sidney off to another team. For longer than a year, Mario had been preparing himself for that, if he is honest with himself. It had been a long time since the Penguins were a real contender for the Stanley Cup and certainly that had helped their chances, but he never thought they'd get Sidney.

He never dared to believe they’d get Sidney.

He finds himself laughing. He's going to need a new jersey: M. Lemieux, because Sidney is going to take the ice wearing a S. Lemieux jersey. And - Mario has to pull his car over to the curb to breathe for a second. Laying his his head on the steering wheel, his feels his heart beat so loudly inside his chest and for a moment it is too much.

He gets to draft Sidney.

It feels like when the adoption papers came through all those years ago.

Gulping on laughter, Mario feels a sob build up deep inside his chest.

They get to keep Sidney.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find/follow me on [tumblr](http://www.pr-scatterbrain.tumblr.com) if you want <3


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